Think twice before stepping on that crunchy top layer of soil. It may be a vital ecosystem—one that you can help protect.
soils
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Arctic Warming Is Driving Siberian Wildfires
Increased temperatures and drought are leading to more wildfires. And wildfire smoke aerosols can suppress precipitation, drying out soils and further increasing fire risk.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Spectral Solar Radiative Transfer in Plant Canopies
Spectrally resolved radiative transfer is needed to compute reliable estimates of sunlight transmission and photolysis of molecules within plant canopies.
Posted inNews
Ukrainian Scientists Race to Document Soil Fungi
Genetic sequencing of samples collected from across the country contribute to a global database and may help researchers assess the damage caused by war.
Posted inNews
Solar Panel Arrays May Affect Soil Carbon Levels
As research ramps up on how to maximize the benefits of colocating agriculture and solar panels, researchers are also beginning to investigate other potential ecosystem benefits.
Posted inNews
Many Forests in One: A Glimpse into the Amazon’s Diversity
In some areas of the Amazon rainforest, trees green up as a response to drought, while in others they die off. Scientists are trying to understand why.
Posted inFeatures
Thanh Huong “Helen” Nguyen: Chasing Down Pathogens
An environmental engineer addresses some of public health’s biggest problems.
Posted inNews
Researchers Find Bacterial Communities Deep Beneath the Atacama
Extremophile microbes exist in the gypsum-rich “fringes” of the driest place on Earth.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Unlocking Earth’s Terrestrial Sedimentary Record with Paleosols
Harnessing the micro-stratigraphy of pedogenic carbonates, scientists have demonstrated that age determination of fossil soils is possible via uranium-lead dating.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
New Observations Provide Insight into Soil Desiccation Cracking
A new application of distributed fiber optic sensing provides early detection of soil desiccation cracking behavior and illustrates, for the first time, the phenomenon of soil crack breathing.